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Mountain blue penstemon

Penstemon laetus

Also called Gay Penstemon, Mountain Blue Beardtongue

Mountain blue penstemon
Photo: Stickpen, CC0
Family
Plantaginaceae (Plantain family)
Grows as
Perennial
Native range
N. & C. California
Climate
temperate

About

Penstemon laetus is a species of penstemon known by the common names mountain blue penstemon and gay penstemon. It is native to the inland mountains of Oregon and California, where its distribution extends from the Klamath Mountains through the Sierra Nevada to the Transverse Ranges. It grows in forest, scrub, and other local mountain habitat. It is a perennial herb growing erect to about 75 centimeters tall, its base becoming woody. The leaves are linear to lance-shaped and up to 10 centimeters long. The glandular inflorescence bears blue or purple flowers up to 3.5 centimeters long. The wide-mouthed tubular or funnel-shaped flower is glandular on the outer surface and mostly hairless on the inside.

Other Penstemon plants

Firleaf beardtongue · Stemless beardtongue · Sharpleaf penstemon · Los Alamos beardtongue · Alberta beardtongue · White penstemon · White River Beardtongue · Whitemargin beardtongue · Gilia beardtongue · Penstemon angelicus · Siskiyou beardtongue · Broadbeard beardtongue

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Penstemon laetus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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